Prickly Pear -- Island Batik's New York Beauty blog hop

Welcome to my stop on Island Batik's New York Beauty blog hop!  Each of us was sent one of the new Island Batik collections and tasked to feature the New York Beauty block.

I was sent I was sent Woodblock Bouquets, a signature collection by Kathy Engle for Carol Moellers Designs. Woodblock Bouquets has rich dark pinks, deep golds, and delightful greens and many floral motifs. Read to the bottom for a chance to win some of these lovely fabrics!

 

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Schmetz, Aurifil, & Hobbs.

Now, while New York Beauty is on a lot of quilters' bucket lists, it was not on mine!  NYB blocks typically involve paper piecing and curved piecing, two things I try hard to avoid.  I can paper piece but I don't really enjoy it.  Curves, however, I avoid at all costs.  My first thought was to check Quiltsmart to see if they make a New York Beauty fusible interfacing.  And they do!  Quiltsmart takes traditional patterns that can be tricky and use printed fusible interfacing to take away some of the more challenging aspects of the pattern.  In my first few years of quilting, I made their Lone Star and their Double Wedding Ring (both pre-date the blog).  Their Liberty Crown is a New York Beauty block.

Using the Quiltsmart interfacing means I was locked in to the 12" block it makes, and I was locked into the specific arcs of their block.  This took some of the decisions out of my hands, but there was still plenty to customize, including fabric placement and layout. I chose the new neutral Muslin as my background and started with crowns made of the three dark greens in the collection.  When I played around in EQ, the green spikes made me think of plants and prickly leaves which went nicely with the idea of bouquets.  

Once I had the rings of the spikes/points/crowns all pieced, it was time to add the rings.  The rings are fused on and stitched with a zigzag using Aurifil invisible thread--so no curved piecing!!  While the spikes took a while to piece, the rings went pretty quickly. 

 

I had a layout I liked from EQ and I made blocks based on that design. While the greens were in the crowns, I used all the other fabrics in the collection randomly in the 3 sizes of solid arcs.  All twenty fabrics from Woodblock Bouquets are in Prickly Pear, which is how I thought of the quilt with its dark green spikes. Once I had all the blocks made and I started to lay out the whole thing, I realized I wanted to change the orientation of some of the blocks and therefore the overall layout.  Instead of two caterpillar-like shapes I originally planned, I liked the almost-circle like layout.  And I knew that continuous spiral quilting would look fabulous with the adjusted layout.

original layout

 

I quilted Prickly Pear with Aurifil 2000 Light Sand, which I also used for the piecing, other than when I used the invisible thread for securing the rings.  I have always used Schmetz needles and the super nonstick needles are great for working with fusible like the Quiltsmart interfacing.  The batting is Hobbs Heirloom 80/20.

While I never would have picked a New York Beauty on my own, I'm really happy with the finished quilt.  These challenges are so great, they make me try things I absolutely would have avoided otherwise.

 

Want a chance to win some Woodblock Bouquets fabric?  I have a pretty good amount of 8 of the fabrics left.  Leave me a comment to be eligible to win this bouquet of fabric.  You can comment about anything, but if you need a prompt, tell me what quilt block or quilt pattern you have reluctant to make. I will randomly draw a winner on July 1st. 
 

Island Batik is hosting a giveaway each week for the blog hop, check out this post for this week's giveaway, and come back tomorrow for the final giveaway of this hop.  Also be sure to check out my fellow ambassador Suzy Webster and see what she made with Woodblock Bouquets.  And visit all the Island Batik ambassadors for lots of New York Beauty inspiration!